Pfizer - Environmental Record

Environmental Record

According to the EPA, Pfizer is among the top ten companies in America with the most numerous emissions sources. A landfill and two wastewater lagoons in Ledyard, CT near the Pfizer plant in Groton, Connecticut, are a source of groundwater pollution in the area. According to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEP), the Pfizer site is active under the CT DEP Site Remediation program. In June 2002, a chemical explosion at the Groton plant injured seven people and caused the evacuation of over 100 homes in the surrounding area.

Pfizer has inherited Wyeth's liabilities in the American Cyanamid site in Bridgewater, New Jersey. This site is highly toxic and an EPA declared Superfund site. Pfizer has since attempted to remediate this land in order to clean and develop it for future profits and potential public uses. Members of the surrounding communities have stated that the EPA has been coerced into accepting a plan that is affordable for Pfizer but is not a complete/proper remediation plan for the site, detrimental to the interest of the community. The EPA has suggested a remediation plan that includes environmental caps and redeveloping a portion of it in the future. This redevelopment will occur on the site which is located within a flood plain, something the EPA failed to address in their feasibility study released in early 2012. The mayor of Bridgewater, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and other key community leaders also came out to endorse the plan without considering the amount of increased flooding that is going to take place if such a plan is implemented.